Ace Merrill–Pop Merrill uncle–nephew relationship

Ace Merrill’s bond with his uncle, Pop Merrill, is defined here by inheritance imagined as a buried treasure. After Pop’s death, Ace treats the map and scattered caches as proof that his uncle left valuable property somewhere for him to recover; when Sheriff Alan Pangborn’s message exposes a much larger cache that Alan has already taken, Ace recasts the search as a claim betrayed and a reason to pursue revenge.

Kinship and the promise of inheritance

Pop’s map gives Ace a material link to his uncle and a way to interpret what Pop left behind. The crosses mark locations, and Ace pairs them with the flat stones he has found covering caches. Two successful finds persuade him that the map indicates more than worthless keepsakes: at the old Masters farm, he uncovered six rolls of steel pennies, which he valued at at least six hundred dollars. To Ace, the pennies are not the prize but evidence that Pop did bury things of value.

That conclusion is sharpened by Ace’s belief that Pop’s judgment had softened in old age. He allows that Pop may have confused diamonds with worthless material near the end of his life, but he reasons that the larger valuables—gold, currency, or negotiable securities—must still be hidden under one or more marked stones. The search therefore rests on both affection for a family inheritance and suspicion that Pop’s scattered clues conceal an important final cache.

Reading Pop’s map

Ace studies the brown-paper map taken from the book and moves his finger from cross to cross, trying to decide which location is most promising. It stops at the old Joe Camber property, the only place where two crosses lie close together. Their proximity makes the site stand out from the other possible locations and turns a general search into a specific pursuit.

Ace connects the place to Pop through a chain of remembered circumstances. Joe Camber had died in a tragedy that took three other lives; Joe’s wife, Charity, and their son had been away, and Ace recalls that Charity may have won money in the state lottery before leaving the area. He speculates that she might have wanted to sell the property quickly after returning. In Castle Rock, Pop was known for buying things quickly, though at a low price. Ace imagines that Charity could have accepted Pop’s offer because she was eager to move, and from there concludes that the Camber place may have belonged to Pop when he died. A possibility becomes certainty almost as soon as Ace entertains it, and he declares the site must be where the treasure is.

Alan’s message and the hidden cache

At the Camber property, Ace finds a concealed Crisco can and opens it. A folded, typed note bears his name, accompanied by a smaller envelope he initially leaves unopened. The letter is from Alan Pangborn. Alan says that, after sending Ace to prison, he visited Pop about once a month under an arrangement: Pop paid him one hundred dollars a month, and Alan allowed Pop to continue making illegal loans. During one visit, Pop left his desk unlocked while he went to the toilet; Alan looked inside and found the map.

Alan explains that one cross on the map was marked in red, identifying the very spot where the can was buried. After Pop died, Alan came to the property and dug it up. The can held more than two hundred thousand dollars. Alan’s account overturns Ace’s expectation: the map did point to substantial wealth, but Pop’s hidden money was discovered and taken by the sheriff before Ace reached it. The letter presents Alan’s act as a deliberate decision to keep the money from Ace, not as an accidental failure to find the cache.

From nephew to claimant

Alan’s note addresses Ace in a mocking, taunting tone, welcomes him back to town, and warns him not to confront Alan over Pop’s money. He frames the cache as something Ace should accept losing, while invoking the familiar finders-keepers principle. The message thus makes their conflict personal as well as financial: Alan has taken the inheritance Ace believes should pass to Pop’s last living relative, and he has made clear that he will resist any attempt to reclaim it.

Ace begins to tear the note but stops and decides to keep it. He interprets Alan’s possession of the money as theft from Pop’s rightful heir and imagines using the preserved message as part of a future act of revenge. The treasure hunt consequently ends not in recovery but in grievance. Pop remains present in the relationship through the map, the caches, and the claim Ace makes in his name; yet the inheritance that binds uncle and nephew becomes the instrument that turns Ace toward a confrontation with Alan.